If the accusations against Volodymyr Zelensky were limited to corruption, it wouldn’t be so bad. Ukrainians had somehow gotten used to it. Then the name of the comedian from Kryvyi Rih would just stand next to Viktor Yanukovych. In terms of the scale of corruption, they were about on the same level. It’s just that under Zelensky, it wasn’t so noticeable because during wartime, more than half of all Ukraine’s state budget expenses were covered by the USA and other Western countries.
Many are beginning to forget that Yanukovych, after his flight, left Ukraine’s treasury empty. As of February 27, 2014, there were only 108,000 hryvnias or $11,300 left in the single treasury account. Almost everything had been plundered.
Even in December 2013, three months before his flight, Prime Minister Azarov begged Putin for a $15 billion loan because, at that moment, there was nothing to cover the state budget expenses. True, Putin prudently decided to give the money in tranches, so the Ukrainian government managed to receive only $3 billion.
Along with Yanukovych (though by different routes), fled to Russia: Ukraine’s Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, the head of the National Bank Serhiy Arbuzov, and almost all ministers. Viktor Yanukovych’s presidency ended in a complete disaster, both economically and politically.
Undoubtedly, something similar could await Zelensky. Even before the war, it was clear that this team was competent only in one thing: transferring state finances to dubious private companies. But everything changed at the end of February 2022. The war pushed corruption into the background. After the shock caused by the events in Bucha and Mariupol, a logical question arose: why did all this happen? Why wasn’t the Ukrainian army prepared for a full-scale invasion by Russia? After all, American intelligence reports that Putin was preparing for war appeared several months before the invasion.
The answer to this question is very simple. To strengthen the country’s defense capability, it was necessary to cut capital construction programs and transfer these funds to the army. Zelensky, having already tasted big money, categorically refused to do this. War did not fit into his logic, as undoubtedly, not only Ukraine but also Russia would suffer. Therefore, he thought that Putin would not dare to launch a full-scale invasion, and the situation would somehow calm down.
Famous Ukrainian volunteer Taras Chmut, always cautiously assessing Zelensky, in October 2023 stated that one of the main reasons for the poor preparation for the war was the lack of military personnel.
“We physically lacked people… Increasing the army to 300-350 thousand would have meant increasing the budget, but there was a position from the president that he had a different vision, so it turned out as it did,” Chmut said.
Chmut’s words are confirmed by an interview Zelensky gave on February 18, 2022, to the news agency RBC-Ukraine. The president stated that Ukraine could not afford to increase the army because then it would have to give up infrastructure projects.
“We can increase the army two or three times, but then, for example, we can’t build roads. For us, this is a problem,” Zelensky said.
Alright. Until December 2021, Putin’s rhetoric could be dismissed as intimidation. But in January, intelligence data clearly indicated that the Russian army was ready for invasion. Even assuming that Putin was bluffing and would back down at the last moment, the President of Ukraine still should have strengthened the state’s defense capability.
What was Zelensky doing in January-February 2022? After celebrating the New Year at the state residence Huta in the Carpathians, the president extended his holidays at the private ski resort Bukovel. There, on January 5, in a café, Zelensky and Yermak were photographed at a table with a bottle of alcohol.
As usual, in Bukovel, the president stayed in the same hotel as Ihor Kolomoisky, with their rooms even located on the same floor. Zelensky’s team once again called it a coincidence.
After the photo in the café with a bottle of vodka, the president spent several more days skiing, happily posing with tourists. Only on January 8 did he return to Kyiv.
On January 19, 2022, Zelensky made his most scandalous statement about “barbecues,” which would later be frequently recalled. He assured Ukrainians that there would be no war, life would continue as usual. “In May, as always − sun, weekends, barbecues… in summer − vacation”. The president advised citizens not to stock up on food and matches, explaining news of Russia’s preparation for war by claiming that Ukraine’s enemies wanted Ukrainians to have a constant sense of anxiety.
That same day, January 19, one of Zelensky’s closest associates, head of the parliamentary faction “Servant of the People” David Arakhamia in an interview with the magazine “Focus” stated that “Western media are spreading fakes,” and overall the situation is no worse than it was in the spring of 2021, when Russia also supposedly threatened war.
“Remember the escalation last spring? The situation as of today is no worse than that, roughly in the same range. Why are Western media escalating? Hard to say,” Arakhamia stated.
On January 23, the US State Department announced that some American diplomatic workers would be evacuated from Kyiv and urged US citizens to leave Ukraine as soon as possible.
On January 25, in his next video address, Volodymyr Zelensky reassured fellow citizens that the “situation is under control” and called on them “not to believe fakes.” That same day, he held a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, where he publicly disagreed with the US forecasts and hinted that Ukrainian intelligence knows the situation better.
“I think we have generally the same agenda, but we still want to discuss some things in detail because you are far abroad, and we are here, and I think we know some things a bit deeper about our state,” Zelensky stated.
On January 31, Minister of Defense Oleksiy Reznikov assured that there is no reason for panic because the situation is identical to last year’s maneuvers of Russian troops at the borders of Ukraine.
“In April 2021, the combat component that Russia had amounted to 126,000 people. The number then and now is proportional. Disproportionate reaction… Then, the bold behavior of the Kremlin led to them receiving a call from the new President of the United States, Mr. Biden, and then a meeting in Geneva… Russia understood that this tactic works. And in the fall, it resorted to it again,” Reznikov said.
On February 11, the German news magazine Der Spiegel, citing sources in the German federal government, named the probable date of Russia’s attack on Ukraine — February 16. This information was provided to German officials by the CIA.
Commenting on this forecast, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Oleksiy Danilov assured that the American intelligence data was incorrect: “As of today, we do not see that a large-scale offensive by the Russian Federation can start on the 16th or 17th.”
February 15. Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba stated that everything is under control: “The security situation remains tense but is fully under control. Ukraine is ready for any developments.”
Several months after the war began, when Ukrainian society began to ask more frequently who was to blame for the Russians being able to capture vast territories in a matter of days, Zelensky finally announced the official version. According to him, he deliberately did not inform about the threat of invasion for two reasons: to avoid provoking massive panic and to avoid damaging the Ukrainian economy.
“…If we had reported it – as some people, whom I will not name, wanted – then I would have lost $7 billion a month, starting from last October, and at the moment when the Russians actually attacked, they would have captured us in three days,” Zelensky said in an interview with The Washington Post in August 2022.
At first glance, the explanation of the President of Ukraine has a certain logic. He feared that millions of Ukrainian citizens, learning about the inevitability of war, would mass flee abroad, and enterprises would lose workers. Of course, one can question the moral aspect of this decision. On one scale, the loss of $7 billion for the economy, on the other — tens of thousands of people who died in Mariupol and other front-line cities due to the lack of evacuation. But Zelensky has yet to explain why, over four months, starting in October, as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, he failed to organize proper defense of the directions warned about by American intelligence.
Why weren’t museum valuables transported to safe regions? Why weren’t children from orphanages evacuated? Zelensky had enough time for all this. Instead of protecting his citizens, the President of Ukraine was vacationing at a ski resort and posing with tourists.